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Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

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Re: Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

#801

Post by zchrykng »

WorldMaker wrote: post #794
zchrykng wrote: post #779

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are we talking about voicemails in the context of emergencies? If it was an emergency, I'm calling every number I have for someone until they pickup or enough time has passed that I write them off as a flake and find the next person on the list who might be able to help with whatever it is.

I think that's what I'm complaining about, too, but again from a just slightly different perspective. In an emergency I also don't want to take time to "call every number I have for someone". I don't want to worry about safe calling hours or people that prescreen every call/make every call go to voicemail (including myself). I'd much prefer to send a much faster, single text message and they either get it or they don…

I think we have different definitions of "emergency" if a text message that they may or may not see any time soon is an acceptable solution.

If it is an actual emergency, I need to know that they have received the communication in real time. I'm never leaving someone a voicemail in an emergency situation.

Re: Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

#802

Post by conductr »

reaperducer wrote: post #595
conductr wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not noticing the decline in my own abilities any more than I had before using them. I finished undergrad 20 years ago and my once sharp math skills had been severely diminished within only 5-10 years. Just simple arithmetic and percentages that I could rapidly do in my head became dependent on calculators/spreadsheets. For all other trivia type knowledge, my brain has offloaded it to the internet RAM in my pocket…

I’m not noticing the decline in my own abilities …said every drunk person ever. That you don't notice it doesn't mean it isn't happening. By the time you notice it, it's too late. That's why elderly people who are worried about their brains play chess and do puzzles like mad.

Perhaps read the rest of the sentence as it continues with "any more than I had before using them [AI/LLM]". We're all only using these tools for ~2 years at most, so if some people are noticing degradation, I am saying that I haven't yet. And so when you say "That you don't notice it doesn't mean it isn't happening.", I agree. But that's off topic, because we're discussing what we've noticed, not what we haven't noticed.

Re: Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

#803

Post by logicalmind »

throwatdem12311 wrote: post #772
logicalmind wrote: post #754

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should probably take a look at the demographics of the top scores of the standardized tests like the SAT. You're not going to find the race you think at the top.

Do you think I wouldn’t know? Pray tell which race do you think I’m going to expect to find? Because let me tell you, the demographics are pretty much exactly what I expected. And my response to that is…so what? If anything you’re telling on yourself with your statement.

Rather than have me guess about what you know, would you care to explain what you meant by your original comment then? What exactly were you referring to as "racist"?

Re: Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

#804

Post by epgui »

overgard wrote: post #654
epgui wrote: post #637

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think my actual cognitive skills have declined by using AI I'm not speaking about you but... I know most people would not have much awareness of their cognitive decline. I know this because that awareness gap is there with or without LLMs, across all age groups and cultures.

True, I guess I try to have some objective measures like my chess elo and maybe some canaries like what books I'm reading. But it would be really hard to tell.

Cognitive ability can be highly specific. If you don't use it you lose it. You may be able to keep your chess ELO high, but realize you can't implement basic algorithms in C++ quite as readily as you used to. Or you can't write as well as you used to. Or you can't quite make that old recipe taste as good as you remember.

We can argue about what skills are important or not, but these things tend to sneak up on us.

Re: Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

#805

Post by etiam »

Altern4tiveAcc wrote: post #384
etiam wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then you either really haven't tried very hard to notice them or have been in an academic environment with severe defects. Does college even work for future economic prospects, by the way?

> Then you either really haven't tried very hard to notice them or have been in an academic environment with severe defects. Sure. (?) > Does college even work for future economic prospects, by the way? Where I live, a college degree is a legal requirement for a lot of professions that pay more than entry level jobs (although not all of them). So, people go to college to get a better paying job in a few years than th…

> Sure. (?)

Most of the universities I've been in have had well above the occasional one. I'm certainly not saying that has to be true everywhere, but for academic level studies it's pretty sad if the fraction is zero.

> Where I live, a college degree is a legal requirement for a lot of professions that pay more than entry level jobs (although not all of them). So, people go to college to get a better paying job in a few years than they could get by immediately entering the workforce.

Fair enough, and I guess we have that here too, with a hard requirement for certain jobs as a proper lawyer or psychotherapist, and soft but compelling requirement for stuff like real estate agent or investment banker. Most college degrees are a dead loss economically compared to starting work immediately in a craft profession with high demand, such as plumber or welder, which is the reason I question the motivation. But not everyone has the capacity for learning skills like that I guess, and it's nice if there are still places that are still willing to pay well for academics.

Re: Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

#806

Post by everforward »

conductr wrote: post #454
everforward wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think some people are okay with communication that’s less involved. Like meme-y BSing where everyone involved knows everyone else is putting like 12% of their thinking power into sending a response. I don’t really enjoy that, so I find having that many threads stressful and annoying. I just take a hard line and will unilaterally downgrade communications (while politely letting the other party know). I have all my f…

Agree. I mute every group chat and notifications for almost everything. Same reasoning. My wife just talks to me when something reaches a point of me needing to know. Broader holiday planning or group travel planning chatter, it seems like any family gathering requires a minimum of 1000 messages.

My SO does the same and it saves my butt sometimes, but I don't like it. It feels like I'm not really solving the issue and just making it her problem instead of mine, but she has a less strong response to the interruptions.

She's certainly better at it though. I can't manage the interruptions, nor am I good about remembering to create calendar events and what not when events come up.

Re: Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

#808

Post by LtWorf »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #797
LtWorf wrote: post #718

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What exactly did you learn?

(I also learned that a lot of people on Hacker News have absolutely no business on a site called 'Hacker News.')

I did repeatedly hack my university though. But you are of course free to leave :)

Re: Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

#809

Post by com2kid »

fc417fc802 wrote: post #716
Sharlin wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And how do you propose that to work if the internet is still full of AI services that just give you the answer or write your essay? The only way an Illustrated Primer can work if you can’t trivially cheat. Which is to say, it solves nothing compared to the current situation.

Why are you assuming that all students will cheat? That's entirely unreasonable. But if you want a way to push cheaters towards doing the work then a boarding school without cell service would work. Although I guess these days you'd also have to account for starlink and the like. Probably easier to warn everyone that they will almost certainly fail if they cheat and then be entirely uncompromising when it comes time…

Public education is about forcing kids (the vast majority of whom are literally incapable of long term planning) to become educated so as to have a stabilizing effect on society.

An uneducated populace is easily lead astray, am existential threat to a democratic society.

Re: Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

#810

Post by WorldMaker »

zchrykng wrote: post #801
WorldMaker wrote: post #794

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's what I'm complaining about, too, but again from a just slightly different perspective. In an emergency I also don't want to take time to "call every number I have for someone". I don't want to worry about safe calling hours or people that prescreen every call/make every call go to voicemail (including myself). I'd much prefer to send a much faster, single text message and they either get it or they don…

I think we have different definitions of "emergency" if a text message that they may or may not see any time soon is an acceptable solution. If it is an actual emergency, I need to know that they have received the communication in real time. I'm never leaving someone a voicemail in an emergency situation.

I think it is possibly more we have a different sense of "received the communication and feedback to the communication in real time" and the kinds of feedback we get from the medium. Text messages give immediate feedback quicker when they are received. Especially iMessage and/or RCS you have read receipts and "quick reactions" and "someone is typing bubbles" to text messages for very immediate feedback. If you have enough people in your life that never answer phone calls, the phone is a much slower way to get in touch with someone and it is missing all sorts of useful quick feedback (did it go to voicemail because they are in a bathroom or a loud concert or did it go to voicemail because they are screening calls after 30 spam calls a day got to be too much for them? did they hear the voicemail or hopefully see a transcript of it? are they going to call back or are they going to not see it for another three days or do they not pay attention to voicemail at all and just expect a text?), most of which additional messaging gets moved to text channels today among many of my friends. ("Can I call you in like twenty minutes?" is a somewhat common text message to and from some of my friends who always text before a call.) In a real emergency you should text me to try to call me before you call me if you want the likeliest results that I will pick up any phone call, but most of the time it is probably just faster to include a headline in the text itself and save us both the time and emotional roller coaster of also making a call.

In an emergency, I can often text 15-20 people in the time it takes to try to get a phone call through to a single person. (Especially with the multiplying effects of copy and paste and group chats.) I'm still probably going to follow up with a bunch of people by phone calls after the texts go out, but most of that will be by request ("can you call me when you get a chance?" texts) for details or shared emotion bonding after the key points are already distributed (and possibly some emergency conditions better).

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